Black and White
by Kenaz Astaroth
Summary: Sometimes, things really are black and white, just not in the way you think.We know what the wizarding world is like. Voldie-evil, Dumbles-good, Death Eaters-evil, the OotP-good.All very clear cut. What if we're wrong? *on hiatus*
1. Chapter One

Black and White

By Kenaz Astaroth

Rating: R, for graphic calculated torture, dark themes, and disillusionment.

Warnings: graphic torture and abuse.  Probably should not read if you are faint of heart.  AU-ness without the story actually being an AU.  Torture.  Character death.  Possibility of Slash (There may or may not be a romance subplot of some sort in this fic.  I'm just leaving the possibility open, and seeing as how it's _me,_ if there is _any _romance then it will be slashy romance.)  General mangling of JK Rowling's universe.  unbetaed

Summary:  Sometimes, things really are black and white, just not in the way you think.  You know what the wizarding world is like, right?  Voldemort is evil, Dumbledore is good, Death Eaters are evil, Snape is a spy for the Light, the Order of the Phoenix is good, Dark magic is evil, Light magic is good.  All very clear cut, yes?  What if I told you that you're wrong?  What if I told you, that everything, absolutely everything, that you knew about the wizarding world was wrong?

Disclaimer:  Anything and Everything that you recognise from JK Rowling's Harry Potter Series is not mine.  It is hers, obviously.  However, everything else is mine (or if it is someone else's, I am not consciously plagiarising or imitating).

Author's Notes:  This story is completely spur-of-the-moment.  It has no defined plot-line (though I do have a general idea), has not been betaed (though I did proofread a few times), and I haven't actually decided whether or not I want to make it into a full-time project when I already have several others with that particular designation.  So please, forgive me if it is a little rough.

Chapter 1

In Dreams, part one

_"Let me show you," pleaded Tom urgently.  "You need to know!  The whole fate of the wizarding world might depend on you knowing."_

_"I'm not that important," said Harry insistently, "and why should I trust you?"_

_Tom closed his eyes.  Dear Merlin, the boy was already so far gone in their lies.  He prayed to any deity willing to listen that he wasn't too late to show the boy the truth, too late to stop Harry from becoming like them._

_"Please, Harry," said Tom softly.  "This is a true dream, nothing more.  Nothing can harm you here.  It is like a muggle telephone, only you can see and touch me as well as hear me."_

_"So this invasion of my dreams is just a method of communication," said Harry doubtfully.  Tom nodded.  "Alright then, show me," said Harry, hoping that this wouldn't be a repeat performance of what had happened the last time Tom had shown him something._

_"Grab my hand," Tom held out his hand to Harry.  Harry hesitated for a moment, then clasped the hand with his own.  There was a sharp tug behind his navel and he was strongly reminded of travel by portkey.  When they landed, he found himself at Hogwarts._

_Harry turned to Tom, frowning in confusion, "What are we doing here?"  This was summer hols before his sixth year.  After the fiasco last year he had not been looking forward to coming back._

_"Where?" asked Tom carefully.  "Where are we?"_

_Harry blinked in complete bewilderment, "We're at Hogwarts, of course."_

_Tom looked out over the dilapidated castle, which literally lay in ruins, and shook his head sadly.  "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Harry?"_

_Harry nodded, rather relieved that Tom had figured it out._

_"Harry…"_

_Harry looked at Tom, "Yes?"_

_"Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry closed in 1439.  It never reopened."_

Harry's eyes widened in shock.  "What are you-" he began, but then there was a bright flash of light, and Harry found himself back in his bedroom, awake.

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The next night, Tom returned.

_"Hello, Harry."  Harry studied him intently._

_"There's more, isn't there?" asked Harry softly.  Tom nodded solemnly, obviously relieved that Harry was accepting his story._

_"Show me," said Harry simply.  Tom nodded, and once more they found themselves at Hogwarts.  Or, the castle, which appeared to Harry's eyes in perfect repair and well-trimmed lawns.  Tom saw the real building, behind the hundreds of faultless illusions.  The grounds were overgrown, the lake looked like very little would be able to survive inside, since it was covered from shore to shore with green algae.  The building itself was in horrible shape, and Tom watched, emotionless, as a tower crumbled and fell to the ground in a cloud of dust before his eyes._

_"Here," said Tom, pulling a wand from the air.  This was a dreamscape, and he was utterly in control of his surroundings.  If he wanted to pull a wand out of the air, he could.  "This is a charm that will let you see past the illusions, and to what this place really looks like," he muttered a charm and Harry's eyes widened in horror as he surveyed the ruins.  _

_Harry frowned, "How are we, the students I mean, able to walk around and attend classes if the building is like this?"_

_"It's a test of your magic," replied Tom.  "Some people's magic can't compensate for the physical limitations of the illusion charms.  Oftentimes they end up being crushed by rubble, or fall from a large height.  Others, like Neville Longbottom, have trouble performing conscious magic when their subconscious is already manipulating their magic in such a strenuous manner.  The illusions," Tom explained, "only have an effect on your eyes.  The test is whether or not your own magic compensates for the rest of your senses."  _

_Harry glared at him, "I think I would notice if students disappeared.  I'm not that stupid."_

_Tom shrugged, "Of course you would.  The students who die are sometimes replaced with an artificial being that imitates everything from their personality to their dress sense to their sleeping patterns.  Other times their existence is simply erased from the student's memory and that is that.  Look around when you return this term.  Look at the difference between the number of first years and the number of fourth years, and of seventh years."_

There was another blinding flash of light and once more Harry found himself in his bed, awake.

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_"This," said Tom, gesturing to the concrete-paved alleyway in front of them, lined with uniform white buildings with uniform grey metal doorways, "is the real Diagon Alley."  They had fallen into a pattern of sorts, and Harry was quickly beginning to trust Tom completely.  His initial surprise at this new revelation faded quickly.  After he had learned the truth about Hogwarts, he had been suspecting that the other wizarding places he knew of would have similar secrets._

_Tom watched Harry's reaction carefully, before nodding once, quickly making his decision._

_"Come, there is more that you need to see."  Harry once again clasped his hand._

_They landed in a hallway.  Strong metal doors with round eight-inch diameter windows stretched for an indeterminate long distance in either direction.  The windows were barred with heavy thick steel bars.  The walls, floor, and ceiling were a uniform white, the doors a metallic grey (Harry was beginning to think that whoever had designed this mass conspiracy had very unoriginal tastes in décor).  The light in the hallway was near to blinding, but what you could see of the rooms beyond the doorways was pitch black, as though none of the light from the hall made it past the bars and into the rooms beyond._

_"Welcome," said Tom dryly, with a hint of irony in his voice, "to the Laboratory of the Phoenix."_

_Harry looked at him, puzzled.  "The Laboratory of the Phoenix?" he asked, unsure of what the title meant._

_"The Order of the Phoenix," said Tom, "is the ruling government of the wizarding world.  Despite what you've learned at Hogwarts, I can assure you that the Ministry is merely a training device.  Almost everything you know about the wizarding world is actually false."  Tom started walking, stopping every now and then to conjure a ball of fire with his wand and place it in one of the rooms._

_"What they do, is invent an enemy, in your case Voldemort, and then they create a force that is supposed to protect you from that enemy-"_

_"The Ministry," said Harry simply, walking along with him._

_Tom nodded, "They made the Ministry incompetent and lax in its duties, so that you'll be even more loyal to the Order when you are introduced to it."_

_"And when would that be?" asked Harry._

_"It depends on the role that they've cast you in," replied Tom.  He stopped and leaned against the wall, looking Harry directly in the eye.  "I won't lie to you, Harry.  Keep that for future reference," Tom's lips quirked up into a slight smile before he sobered once more.  "You were specially bred, Harry, to be a weapon.  From conception you were meant to be the deciding factor in the war."_

_"But if Voldemort-" started Harry, confused._

_"Oh, Voldemort's fake all right," Tom assured him. "No, this is a different war.  The Order of the Phoenix is a little… harsh in enforcing their laws.  That might be alright with people by itself, but there's more to it than that."  Tom paused and searched his mind for an adequate way to explain._

_"The members of the Order get special privileges," said Tom finally.  "The thing is, the privileges go far beyond what they should get._

_"Every member gets an extortionate salary.  There are enough members that the economy is rather badly affected.  I don't suppose that you've studied economics?"  Harry shook his head.  Tom frowned and muttered, "They don't teach these kids anything useful at all…"  Louder, he continued, "In layman's terms, money is worth less and less lately, and while the Order members' salaries compensate for the inflation, the rest of the public is left with exactly what they had before, only it isn't worth as much anymore.  Basically, Order members are living like kings and almost everyone else is in poverty."_

_Tom sighed and looked at the ceiling as if he were remembering something.   After a moment he went on, "The Order members are each given an estate.  Lots of times non-Order members' homes are destroyed to make room for yet another manor for the Order.  Order members do not have to pay for things like clothes, food, or for schooling."  Tom gave him a piercing look, "Or haven't you ever wondered why you could attend Hogwarts free of charge?"_

_Harry was rather surprised.  In all honesty, he had never thought at all about Hogwarts tuition.  It had never come up._

_Tom seemed to read his answer from his expression and nodded, "Like I thought."_

_"So," started Harry, trying to break the uncomfortable silence that had come over the two of them, "if the Order is so oppressive, why hasn't anyone done anything to stop it?"_

_"We have," said Tom, "but the resistance has a major disadvantage.  The Order members do not want to give up their easy life.  They're not stupid; they've seen how we live.  The resistance isn't as organised, and we have far fewer resources.  The Order has recruited all of the most powerful and all of the most wealthy.  They've completely outlawed those groups of people that resisted their recruitment system."  Tom started ticking a list off his fingers, "Sirens, Hags, Veela, Centaurs, Mer-people, Merrows, Fairies, Nymphs, Elves, Vampires, Giants, Werewolves- just about any sentient beings that aren't fully human, come to think of it."_

_"But I've seen-" started Harry._

_"Artificial beings, Harry, that were created solely to provide diversity and to distract you further from realising that your entire Hogwarts career is a complete waste of time."_

There was a bright flash of light and Harry once again found himself in his bed, awake.  This time though, he had a lot to think about.

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(A/N:  Okay, torture warning for this scene.  This scene is the reason the fic is rated R and not PG-13)

_"I didn't have time, last night, to show you what we came here for," said Tom.  They were once again in that long hallway, the Laboratory of the Phoenix._

_Tom strode over to a door.  The choice seemed random to Harry, but Tom seemed to know where he was going.  Tom didn't bother with opening the door, but rather, walked right through it._

_"Tom! What-"_

_"Shh," said Tom, scowling with nothing but his head sticking out on Harry's side of the door.  "Come on, hurry up."  Harry noticed that Tom was looking slightly ill, and wondered why._

_Harry tentatively stepped towards the door, then, bracing himself, he walked through it.  There was an odd tingling sensation that swept through he body as he passed through the door, but otherwise he came out unscathed.  _

_Harry would have inspected the room, had it not been black as pitch inside.  If he hadn't known better he would have said that there were no windows or doors to the room at all._

_"I told you that the Order was harsh in their deliverance of punishment for breaking the law," said Tom, his voice seemingly coming from nowhere and everywhere in the dark.  Then suddenly there was a light and Harry blinked a few dozen times as his eyes adjusted.  Then he wished that they hadn't._

_Displayed before him was the barely-living form of a twelve-year-old girl.  She was bald, and naked, and tied, splayed across what looked like an operating table.  Those details were forgotten, however, when he saw what had been done to the girl._

_She seemed to have been systematically skinned.  There was a long cut from her throat all the way to her navel, where it split into two lines to travel down her legs.  From this apparent guiding line, strips of skin exactly one centimetre wide were cut off, leaving bare fat and muscle.  The strips were not cut off fully though, but were cut far enough that they lay perfectly flat along the surface of the table.  Each strip of cut off skin was separated by an equal sized strip of intact skin.  The child's eyes were anguished and her mouth open in a near-silent scream.  The only thing you could hear of that scream anymore was her harsh-sounding outpouring of breath._

_That was the most horrifying thing about it really.  That the girl was not only still breathing, but still conscious, and appeared to have been conscious through the entire torture session._

_Harry felt bile rise in the back of his throat and tears spring to his eyes.  His body seemed to have an idea other than spewing, however.  He watched, a passenger in his own form, as he walked over to her side and knelt down so that his head was only slightly above hers.  He reached out to cup her unmarked cheek with his hand, and as he did so he began to glow with an inner fire that was first visible in his eyes, then on his whole body._

_The glow slowly transferred over to her, until they both shone brightly with a white fire.  Harry watched in astonishment as her wounds closed over and her taut muscles relaxed.  Her bonds came loose, then fell off altogether.  She sat up and looked down at her glowing hands, which slowly dimmed until there was no evidence anything had happened at all, except for the fact that she was completely healed.  Then she looked up and directly into Harry's eyes._

_"Thank you," she said simply, with no trace of her earlier hoarseness.  Then she vanished._

There was a blinding light and Harry awoke, shaking with shock and horror as the image of her sprawled before him, skinned like some grisly dissection gone wrong.  He ran to the toilet and gave in to his urge to vomit, as tears streamed down his face.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Tom did not reappear in his dreams for several days, for which Harry was grateful.  He didn't want to see anything like that again.  He didn't really want to see Tom again, for fear that the other would show him something similar.  His fear didn't stop him from once again seeing Tom standing in front of him just after he had drifted off to sleep.  

_They were in a forest this time, bright and cheerful, exactly the way Harry didn't feel.  "Harry," said Tom softly, searching the boys face for any emotion, which it seemed to be oddly void of, "I am so sorry that you had to see that."  Tom closed his eyes and sat down, leaning against a tree, looking truly remorseful.  He looked up at Harry, desperate for reassurance that Harry wouldn't desert him._

_"What did she do?" asked Harry softly, so softly that it almost couldn't be heard.  Tom heard it well enough._

_"She stole a loaf of bread because neither she nor her younger brother had eaten in days and they had no money," said Tom soberly.  Something about his tone set Harry off._

_"How can you be so calm about this?!" shouted Harry angrily, tears constricting both his ability to speak clearly and his ability to breathe.  Tom stood abruptly and grabbed Harry roughly by the shoulders._

_"Calm, Harry?  Calm?!" he shouted before shoving Harry away from him and stepping away, clenching his fists at his sides, hoping to regain at least a semblance of control.  "I live with this, Harry.  Every single day of my life I live with this.  _Knowing_ that it happens and _knowing_ exactly how close I came to being one of _them_.  Great Merlin, Harry, I'm so _sorry_ that seeing a child like that doesn't have quite the same effect on me as it does on you.  I'm so _sorry_ that seeing my youngest son _drawn and quartered_ in the middle of a public square with Order members _cheering_ desensitised me, Harry.  I'm _sorry _that I know what the Order is capable of and I'm _sorry _that I know that _that _was hardly the worst,"  Tom was breathing heavily, flushed with tears streaking down his cheeks.  He turned away._

_"You should go, Harry.  Come back in a few days when you're willing to accept that other people have lives worse than yours."_

There was a flash and Harry woke up.  He turned over onto his stomach and cried.

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Author's Notes:  Yes, I know, I said I wouldn't be posting anything until after November 14th.  But well…  yeah.  I'm in serious, desperate need of feedback here.


	2. Chapter Two

Black and White

By Kenaz Astaroth

Rating: R, for graphic calculated torture, dark themes, and disillusionment.

Disclaimer: Anything and Everything that you recognise from JK Rowling's Harry Potter Series is not mine. It is hers, obviously. However, everything else is mine (or if it is someone else's, I am not consciously plagiarising or imitating).

Author's Notes: I got my files back! **hops up and down giddily, much like she has been doing for the last hour** I'm sooo happy!!! **stops suddenly** You are all under a geas to ignore my completely un-Slytherin behaviour. And if that doesn't work, then I'll start in with the death-threats. **glares menacingly** 

Also, I know that nobody commented on this, but if Tom is OOC, don't kill me alright? There is a _very good reason. _

Oh yeah, another torture warning for scene one of this chapter.

Chapter 2

In Dreams, part two

_"I'm sorry," said Harry softly, standing in the same forest as before, with Tom's back turned towards him.  Tom turned around and nodded curtly._

_"Is there anything else that I need to see?" asked Harry, though he hoped desperately that the answer was no._

_"There's more, but I don't think that you're ready to see it," replied Tom, looking directly at Harry with a cold expression that Harry had not seen on him before.  Harry looked at him questioningly.  "You need to go back to the Phoenix Labs."_

_Harry shuddered, but looked at Tom determinedly.  Tom studied him for a moment, then nodded and held out his hand._

_They walked along in uncomfortable silence, broken only by the sound of their footsteps and their breathing._

_"I'm not taking you to see the prisoners, but in order to get where we're going, we have to pass through here." He looked at Harry, worry showing in his face.  "I noticed that you couldn't control yourself around Triana.  _

_"Triana?  Is that the girl's name?" asked Harry.  Tom nodded, smiling slightly for the first time that evening._

_"That's what she told us.  You managed to transport her directly to my home, though Merlin knows how you managed to do that.  I haven't been able to get much out of her besides her name though.  She asks for you quite often."  Tom sobered and went back to his previous explanation, "This room," he gestured to the doorway behind him, "holds people who are even worse off than Triana was.  If you can't control your magic, it will get away from you as it did last week, only with this number of people you could be drained to the point of death."_

_Harry blanched and looked at the door in renewed fear of what it held.  He took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and looked Tom directly in the eyes.  Tom nodded solemnly, and walked through the door.  Harry followed, bracing himself for the horrors it undoubtedly held._

_They entered into a long hallway.  Harry noticed immediately that there was a sound of rain, and the drops fell onto his skin, but they were still indoors.  Then he noticed the contents of the hallway, and he felt that no matter how prepared he had thought he was, it obviously wasn't enough._

_On one side of the hallway stretched a long row of manacles, set high enough on the wall that anyone hanging from them would have their feet hand well above the floor._

_On the other side of the hall, stretched a row of wooden beds.  Once again, the victims were splayed across the beds, but these were not tied.  No, tying would have been a blessing.  Instead, huge nails, one centimetre in diameter at the narrowest point, were shoved brutally through their hands and feet, as well as attaching their pelvis and shoulders to the board.  This was hardly the complete list of what had been done to those on the beds.  Some looked like they had been in an iron maiden before they had been pinned like huge grotesque butterflies to the torture beds.  Others were skinned as Triana had been.  A few had had their fingers and toes chopped off, still more had had their bodies sliced across and downwards, so that there was a precise-looking grid made of their cuts.  They were all awake and screaming loudly, or in some cases their screaming sounded like Triana's had.  All except one._

_That one had his eyes closed and his expression was controlled and poised in his unconsciousness.  His torture was distinctive, far more so than the others in that it did not seem to have been done with the same cold precision as the others.  Bruises littered the boy's body from head to toe, but were overshadowed by the sheer amount of blood that seeped from his body.  Harry hadn't really noted it before, but all of the other victims, despite their wounds, didn't bleed.  This boy had been seemingly sliced haphazardly, and if Harry had been familiar with that type of wound he would have said that the boy had been flogged mercilessly._

_Harry noted all of this in the space of a moment, before he fell to the ground, feeling as though his body was being pulled in all directions at once.  There was a soundless explosion from within him and he collapsed into someone's arms, breathing hard and feeling utterly exhausted._

_When he finally got enough strength back to open his eyes, the first thing he noticed was that every one of the prisoners was gone, except the boy.  The second thing he noticed, was that Tom was not the one holding him._

_"Here," said a hauntingly familiar voice from behind him as he was helped into a sitting position against the wall.  He turned towards the voice and found himself eye to eye with the tired but happy face of Ron Weasley._

_"Ron?" asked Harry uncertainly, unable to summon the strength to even be surprised, settling for a weak uncertainty and puzzlement._

_"Yeah, it's me."_

_"But how- when-"_

_Ron sighed a leaned back against the wall, allowing Harry to lean against him.  "I fell," he said, referring to the phenomenon that occurred when you failed the illusion test, "just after you rescued Ginny from the Chamber of Secrets.  I suppose that you're still attending Hogwarts?"_

_Harry nodded, "I'm only now having things explained to me."_

_Ron nodded, "That explains why you're here in dreamform."_

_Something dawned on Harry, "Are you?"  Ron looked at him in confusion, "In dreamform, I mean."  Ron nodded and Harry paled, his gaze going to the still form of the boy still lying on the bed.  Ron followed his line of sight and nodded._

_"Yeah, that's me.  I heard somewhere that your body can't be affected by magic while your soul is in dreamscape.  I guess this is proof that it's true."_

_Harry was sorely confused, and not hiding it well._

_Tom smiled slightly, "I think that it's time for you to wake up, Harry.  Between mine and Ron's magic, I should be able to transport him out of this place, since you've already healed and unbound him.  I'll show you tomorrow night."_

There was the customary flash of light and Harry woke up, only to go back into a dreamless sleep to regain some of his strength.

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"Ron wants to see you.  He asked me to tell you that he'd turn up at your house as soon as he was allowed."

_"When will that be?"_

_"Whenever you master a certain three charms."_

_"What charms?"_

_"One that will disguise your magical signature so that the Order doesn't know that you are running around in the real wizarding community.  A second that will give you a slightly different appearance and will hide that damned scar of yours.  The third is one that will create a duplicate of your body, right down to the magical signature, that you'll leave here so that no one knows that you're missing."_

_"Alright, that sounds simple enough."_

_"You also have to be proficient enough with them that you can cast them all at the exact same time, wandless."_

_Harry sighed, "This is going to take a long time, isn't it."_

_Tom grinned, "No, not if you practice as much as I'm going to make you.  Now, here's your wand," he pulled Harry's wand out of thin air, "and let's get started!"_

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A week later, Harry had finally mastered the charms wandless, but he was having quite a bit of trouble performing them simultaneously.  Tom had taken his wand away after his first three attempts at the charms themselves, which had been a week before, and forced Harry to attempt the enchantments wandless.  Harry had caught on to that fairly quickly, which Tom had pronounced "remarkable!"  Of course, it was no good until Harry could cast the three spells all at once, and right now he was having trouble just casting them in a fairly quick succession.

_"Almost got it," said Tom cheerfully, as Harry cast the first two charms but fumbled with the last one enough that it only went into effect nearly a minute later._

_Harry grumbled under his breath.  This was _frustrating!_ He had spent a week getting to this point and it still wasn't good enough. _

_An hour later he managed it and slumped back against a tree, grinning widely._

_"I did it!"_

_Tom grinned, "It usually takes a few months to get the hang of it."_

_"WHAT?!  Five minutes ago you were going on and on about how I was taking sooo much longer than everyone else you taught did!"  Tom chuckled._

_"Yes, but would you have worked nearly so hard if I had told you that it was going to take a few months?"_

_Harry muttered something that sounded suspiciously like 'sneaky bastard,' which only served to make Tom laugh harder._

"Alright, Ron will be over in…"  Tom flickered out of view for a moment before reappearing, "three days.  Are you up to visiting the Labs again tomorrow?"

_Harry nodded, "See you tomorrow night."_

Harry woke himself up, the customary flash of light flashed once and he was in his bed.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

_"Why is it raining in here?" asked Harry, holding out a hand and watching as the moisture went straight through it. They were once again in the hallway, this time walking straight through.  The Order seemed to either not have any prisoners to refill the room with, or they just hadn't noticed.  Harry didn't think that the latter was completely out of the question.  The Labs were huge and according to Tom, no one had ever escaped before so they probably wouldn't be on the watch for it._

_"From what Ron told me, that was their only water ration.  Food came in small portions once a day, if the Order members deemed the prisoners to have been behaved that day."  Tom looked disgusted and Harry's face mirrored his expression._

_"Why do I lose control of my magic like I did before?" asked Harry, changing the subject abruptly._

_"Most people lose control of their magic when they're in dreamform," said Tom.  "Usually, the more powerful you are the harder it is for you to control.  I've never seen anyone affect the physical world anywhere near as much as you do, though."_

_Tom was silent for a moment before he went on, "Not a lot is known about True Dreaming and dreamform.  It's something that was just recently discovered by… one of my close friends.  We know it's hard to control magic while in dreamform, and that whatever you see is what is actually happening at that very moment.  You can do just about anything that you want to, but only the most powerful wizards' actions have an effect on the real world."  It's also possible to change your appearance here, but you don't need to know that yet, continued Tom silently._

_"How was it discovered?"  Harry asked curiously._

_"My friend is really interested in the muggle concept of magic.  There are some muggle religious groups that practice things like visualisation, astral projection, meditation....  Then there are these odd rituals that some of them do.  A lot of times they use primitive tools like fire, chanting, and such things.  Pe- my friend was interested in what would happen if a real wizard or witch practiced something like that.  True Dreaming is what he discovered when he tried Astral Projection."_

_Harry looked at him blankly.  Astral projection?  Meditation?  Visualization?  Tom chuckled when he saw Harry's confusion._

_"Astral projection is pretty much what we're doing now.  Your soul, or astral form as muggles call it, is completely disconnected from your body.  Meditation is similar, only you're supposed to explore your subconscious rather than the real world.  Visualization is just the idea that if you imagine something happening, it's more likely to really happen.  Or at least, that's what I understand about it.  My friend would probably give you more accurate information."_

_Harry blinked, "Oh."_

_At this point they had reached the end of the hallway.  They walked through the door and came out in a brightly-lit, cheerfully decorated hallway that contrasted so sharply from the one they had just been in that Harry did a classic double-take, checking to make sure that the previous hallway did in fact exist.  Tom just kept walking._

_"This is where the lowest ranking Order members' offices are.  It'll take a good while before we reach the upper levels."_

_They passed through very ornate rooms.  The desks and tables were made from solid planks of dark wood, polished till it reflected nearly as well as any mirror.  The chairs, and even couches, were upholstered in plush, dark velvet and the cushions looked soft enough to swallow a person whole.  The walls were painted white, but hidden behind tropical plants and the silk curtains that sectioned off seemingly random areas of the room.  All in all, the place looked like it had cost a fortune, and these were for the lowest ranking members!_

_Harry stiffened, outraged that the same people who tortured children would indulge themselves so extravagantly, only a single wall separating them from their victims._

_"Calm down, Harry," came Tom's stern voice, breaking Harry out of his thoughts.  Harry took a deep breath, nodding curtly and they continued on._

They passed a room where a dozen house-elves were sleeping, along with several of what appeared to be human slaves.  All of them, humans and elves alike, were wearing the same thing.  From the way it looked, they were wearing a sheet that had had a hole cut into the exact centre.  Their heads went through the hole and the result was belted with a long piece of twine at their waist.  The human slaves looked emaciated, and had bruised littering their bodies, though they showed no evidence of other injuries.  The elves probably were underfed, but elven bodies didn't show malnutrition the way human bodies did.  The elves looked like they punished themselves to extremes that not even Dobby had reached, and then some.  Harry had a feeling that his magic would have gotten out of hand again, had he had enough left.  He still hadn't recovered from the night before and felt like even a simple levitating charm would be too much for him.

_Harry shuddered, watching a slave-boy stumble into the room, nudge another slave, then collapse on a pile of rags that apparently served them as beds.  The slave that had been nudged, and Harry couldn't tell whether it was a male or female, immediately got up and trudged out one of the doors leading out of the room.  Tom sighed and pulled Harry further down the hall._

_They passed more "offices" and slave-rooms before eventually coming to an exceedingly large, ornately carved door.  The door was washed with gold, emphasising the intricate and tiny details of the pattern that covered it.  Harry could see, among the carved vines, flowers, animals, and victorious troops leering over their fallen enemies, Latin words and even what appeared to be poetry etched into the gold-washed wood.  Of course, it was all in Latin so he had very little idea as to what it said._

_Tom walked through the door silently and Harry followed, only to gape in utter incomprehension and shock at the room before him._

_The enormous room looked a bit like a forest at first glance, and a carefully cultivated garden at second.  On third, it appeared as though one had fell into a truly obscure jeweller's shop._

_A pathway, made of solid silver, wound its way through the room.  Trees circled the perimeter, having solid (which Harry ascertained by tapping on one of them) bronze trunks and precisely cut leaves made of flawless emeralds, which were never less than a hand-span wide, and double that in length._

_Inside that outer boundary, silver willows with coin-sized ruby leaves were scattered about the room, swaying in an imaginary breeze, joined by birch trees made of diamonds and emeralds, and pine trees composed of onyx trunks and branches, with yet more emeralds for the needles._

_Throughout this quasi-forest made of precious gems were scattered animals, made from less precious materials, all of them animate despite the hard substances that they were made of.  A garnet fox, a mother-of-pearl stag, an aquamarine tropical bird, a pack of wolves made of quartz, and a snake made of amethyst, picked out in details down to the individual hair, feather, or scale._

_The desk that sat at the middle of the room appeared to have been carved out of a single tree trunk, rather than having been composed of several pieces.  The appearance would have been absolutely convincing, had the desk not been solid gold (though it must have been only a layer of gold over a harder surface, or magically enhanced, since gold by itself wouldn't be able to hold up under any sort of practical use.  Other than that, the illusion was perfect, down to the grain patterns in the "wood").  Ivy made of rose gold climbed the sides of the desk, though not a leaf touched the top of it.  The chair was a similar masterpiece._

_Harry stood stock still, slowly overcoming his surprise as his mind flitted back to the forms of the emaciated slaves and abused elves, to the tortured victims who had lain on wooden beds with stakes shoved through their extremities to keep them from moving, to the form of a tortured girl whose only crime had been a want of food, and lastly, to the image of his best friend, beaten and starved for however long he had been in this place._

_Every single thing in the entire room shattered at once, and Harry's eyes glowed a bright green in his anger as he called up a reserve of magical power that he hadn't thought he possessed.  Everything shattered, that is, except three animals, made of mother-of-pearl, quartz, and amethyst, respectively, and the silver and gold, which vanished into thin air._

There was a bright flash of light and Harry found himself awake, in his bed, in his room at Number 4.  He yawned a smiled absently at the three-foot-tall mother-of-pearl stag that stood just beside his bed.  He went back into a dreamless sleep, sighing contentedly as the stag, surprisingly warm and soft for having been made of such materials, cuddled up against him and settled its head at Harry's feet.

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Replies to Reviewers:

**hyalite- ****grin** Matrix? **blinks, surveys story** You know, it hadn't occurred to me, but, yeah… it is sort of similar.

**Caspian- ****grins widely** Definitely one of my better summaries. Thanks. It's really not above the R rating, I know. But it was three in the morning so… yeah. David Eddings? Nope. Probably should though. Maybe I could learn something… **evil grin** I'm rather interested as well, especially since I haven't quite figured it out yet ^_^. Thanks!

**Riley Cat- **I really should stop posting at three in the morning… I put up a repost without the overblown warnings… Anyway, thanks. Here's chapter two, but chapter three might take a while.

**BabyPufoo- ** **grin** I'm glad you liked it. Here's more, and I'm sorry for the delay.

**mali- **^_^ Thank you!

**Crystal Illusion- **Yup Tom=Good… er, sorta. You'll see what I mean either chapter three or four. Order of the Phoenix is definitely evil, or at least the commanding officers are. Brothers? Drunk? Running around in boxers? **envisions her brother doing the same and shudders** Poor you! Here's more (finally).

**vashunglasses- **Thank you, and I will try.

**madwoman-** Thank you! Erm, Tom is sorta- **cuts off because she just came dangerously close to revealing the major plot-point of the next two chapters** Er, yeah. You'll see 

**npetrenko-** Thank you, and I plan to anonymous- **blinks** **grins** Really? Thank you! Er, this isn't exactly soon, but the next chapter should be up in a couple days. 

**Kimdalia-** I'm wondering what you meant by original **looks suspicious** and I'm not sure whether it's supposed to be a compliment or not…. The entire wizarding world wasn't a complete lie, but most of the parts that really affect Harry were invented by the Order. Harry was created by Order members, and the details come out later. He wasn't supposed to be so much a member, but as a perfect solution to all their problems. There already is a revolution, it just lacks supplies, power, people, er, everything really…. What they end up doing is a secret, because I don't want to give away the plot (and I don't entirely know yet). The torture scene was awful to write, though that was mostly due to the fact that it was about three in the morning and I wasn't terribly lucid at the time… (I should really stop posting new stories in the middle of the night…). Oh, you like ITFOTT and MtaD too? It's nice when people like more than one of my stories. Continuing! 

**Fiera-** Thank you. It's a change of pace from my other stories (MtaD and ITFOTT are just variations on a previously used idea. It was nice to do something different. 

**Ariana Deralte-** The Giver? **looks over story** Huh? **doesn't see it** The idea for this to all be some delusion of Harry's _did _strike me, but I'm not going to say whether or not it's going to happen yet. The Slyth!Dumbledore bunny… is rather underdeveloped. If you want to preread the first chapter for me (not beta, just read it over and tell me what you think), if I ever finish it, then that'd be fine. My email is **akriel_astaroth@yahoo.com** if you're interested. ****


	3. Chapter Three

Black and White

By Kenaz Astaroth

Rating: R, for graphic calculated torture, dark themes, and disillusionment.

Disclaimer:  Anything and Everything that you recognise from JK Rowling's Harry Potter Series is not mine.  It is hers, obviously.  However, everything else is mine (or if it is someone else's, I am not consciously plagiarising or imitating).

Author's Notes:  Here's chapter three.  It'd short, I know, and it ends on a cliffhanger, but I promise that I'll make up for it next chapter.  Also, I added a couple scenes for chapter two, so go reread that before you read this.

Author's Note 2:  I need a beta!  Preferably one with experience in both betaing and writing, and has no problem with darkfic, slash, character death, and my turning canon on it's ass.

Chapter 3

In Dreams, part three 

((IMPORTANT: GO REREAD CHAPTER TWO!  I ADDED TWO SCENES!))

Harry woke up and stretched, feeling tired and drained, yet not, at the same time.  He had awoken the day before with a similar feeling.  He imagined that it was caused by using so much raw magic.  He yawned and made to get up off the bed, only to knock a mother-of-pearl, animate, stag off of the bed.  It landed on the floor with a rather loud thump and looked up at him reproachfully.  Harry stared for a moment before shaking his head and wondering what he had done in a past life to deserve this.  Could he possibly have a _more _conspicuous pet?

He rubbed his temples, trying to get rid of his slight head-ache, which wasn't exactly eased by his aunt's shrill scream coming from downstairs.

"Are you up yet?!  You _know _Vernon has a business dinner tonight, boy!  It's noon!  You should have been up hours ago helping me cook!"

Harry's eyes widened.  "_Noon?!_" he murmured incredulously.  He looked up at his clock.  11:13.  Harry rolled his eyes.   Petunia always did have a tendency to exaggerate.

Suddenly the whole house shook Harry was jolted off the bed and onto the floor.  The stag pranced nervously.

Harry cursed and got up, scrambling over the fallen toys to the window.

Death Eaters.  Hundreds of bloody Death Eaters.  They all raised their wands and threw a spell at the same time, silvery blue sparks shooting from their wands.  The spells got up to the garden fence before they were stopped.  They sparks outlined a dome around the house, then vanished.  The house shook once more, and a broken model car fell off its shelf and hit Harry in the shoulder.

"They just couldn't have waited for another two days until I was gone, could they," muttered Harry.  Even if the underaged wizarding laws had not been in place, he doubted he would be able to get off a single Expelliarmus charm, as magically drained as he was, let alone hold off as many Death Eaters as there were outside.  He sincerely hoped the wards held.

The Death Eaters fired off the spell again and the house shook even harder than it had before.  Two shelves fell off the wall and Harry yelped as several toys hit him on their way down.  He moved away from the shelves, and away from the window, rubbing his foot where the broken rifle had landed on it.

_'Where are the Aurors?'_ he thought distractedly.  Surely, surely if they could detect a house-elf levitating a pudding and get an owl to him but moments later, they would know about a Death Eater attack.  _'And you would think that they'd be faster in their response when it's a real emergency.'_

Suddenly an owl flew in the window and dropped a letter before flying right back out again.  Harry caught the parchment and opened it.

_Dear Mr. Potter,_

_We have received intelligence that several ward disabling charms have been used at your place of residence this morning at seventeen and twenty minutes past eleven._

_          As you know, underage wizards are not permitted to perform magic outside school, and further spellwork on your part may lead to expulsion from said school (Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery, 1875, Paragraph C)._

_          We would also ask you to remember that any magical activity that risks notice by members of the non-magical community (Muggles) is a serious offense under section 13 of the International Confederation of Warlocks' Statute of Secrecy._

_          Enjoy your holidays!_

_Yours Sincerely,_

_Mafalda Hopkirk_

_Improper Use of Magic Office_

Ministry of Magic 

Harry stared at the letter for a moment, then began to laugh at the sheer absurdity of the whole situation.  He fell onto his bed, clutching his sides, completely oblivious to the hysterical note that had crept into his voice, and laughed.

He didn't stop laughing even when his sides ached and tears had begun to stream down his face.  He didn't stop laughing when the stag nervously butted him with his horns.

He did stop laughing, however, when there was a bright flash of light outside his window and the house gave a final shudder, informing him that the wards had fallen.

At that point, he couldn't find anything at all funny with his predicament.

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Replies to Reviewers:

**Ice Lupus- ** First Review: Thanks!  Second review: here's more.

**Dani-loves-Sirius-Black- **Ah, **goes into misty Trelawny voice**  All shall  be revealed in time, my dear.  **falls out of Trelawny voice, feeling slightly nauseous about having gone there in the first place**  Er, yeah.  You will find out later, promise.  And it's actually both and neither.  I'll leave it at that.

**VB- ****grin**  Thanks!  Though it's not really from the "bad guys'" perspective, but that comes out a bit more in later chapters.  Here's an update, though I'm rather afraid that I'm going to be bugged anyway, seeing as it is both short and ends on a cliffy…

**Never again- **Thanks.  Heh, if I had just reversed the roles, this would be a helluva less complicated fic to write…  too tired for a long review?  **pouts**  y're welcome.

**Caspian- **hehe, might wanna get that fixed.  Flawless?  **reviews chapter **  huh?  No t'wasn't!  It was choppy and I skipped scenes (I went back and added them, actually), and the whole thing is all confusing and…  **trails off and smiles ruefully**  You compliment me, and I argue, go figure.  This story has a very different tone/feel to it than More than a Dream.  Part of it is that I have more writing experience now More than a Dream is a trifle less original than this, and the writing style I use with this fic is a bit different than how I'm writing the other one.   The rest of the difference is that this one _is_ more ambiguous and mature, if I might quote you, than the other one.   This one is darker, and a lot less predictable.  I've gone out of my way to make this different from the typical fanfic, and More than a Dream is a rather tame, run-of-the-mill fic.  **shrug**  There really is not much of a comparison between the two in my opinion.


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